Juppiter Tragoedus

ZEUS

HERA

ATHENE

APHRODITE

CHARACTERS

APOLLO

HERMES

HERAKLES

KOLOSSOS

MOMOS

HERMAGORAS

TIMOKLES

DAMIS.

POSEIDON

Hermes: O Zeus, why wand'rest, self-communing, lone, And sicklied o'er with this pale student's hue? Make me the partner of thy sorrow's load, Nor scorn the prattle of a lowly friend.

Athene: Yea, sire, great Kronides, our father and highest of rulers, I, the clear-eyed and divine, the Trito-born, clasp thee imploring. Hide not thy grief in thine heart. Tell it forth that thy children may know it. What biting care dost thou hold in thy brain and thy bosom? What anguish Wrings that deep groan from thy soul and yellows thy fair, ruddy color?

Zeus: There no woe that happens, sooth to tell, No pain, no chance-born theme of tragedy, Of which the godhead beareth not the load.

Athene: Great heav'n! What prologue doth begin his tale.

Zeus: O earthy offspring of the earth, fell race, And thou, Prometheus, what woe hast thou wrought!

Athene: What is 't? We are the band of thine own kin.

Zeus: Thunderbolt, sounding afar, how shall thy hurtling crash save me?

Hera: Keep your temper, Zeus, since I cannot answer you in comedy metre as the others do, nor have I swallowed Euripides whole so as to take my part in the drama when you give me the cue.

Hera: Do you imagine that I don't know the cause of your distress?

Zeus: "Thou dost not know, els hadst thou shrieked aloud."

Hera: I know that the sum and substance of your trouble comes from love-making. Of course, I do not shriek, for I am used to this insulting treatment at your hands. Undoubtedly you have come upon some Danae or Semele or Europa again, and are attacked with love, and so you are scheming to become a bull or a satyr, or to pour down as a shower of golden rain through the roof into your lady-love's lap. These groans, these tears, this pallor are symptoms of the lover and nobody else.

Zeus: Poor, simple thing, do you think, then, that my present affairs have to do with love-making and such-like child's play?

Hera: Being Zeus, you are disturbed by nothing else, I know.

Zeus: O Hera, things divine are in extremity. As the saying is, it is touch and go with us whether we are still to be honored and to receive the gifts that are offered up on earth, or whether we are to be disregarded altogether and held utterly insignificant.

Hera: Surely the earth has not produced another race of giants? Or have the Titans broken their bonds and overpowered their guard, and taken up arms against us again?

Zeus: Take heart. Beneath the earth all things are well.

Hera: Then what could happen to frighten us? If you have no anxiety of that kind I do not see why you have favored us with this little dramatic exhibition.

Zeus: Hera, Timokles the Stoic and Damis the Epicurean held a discussion yesterday on the doctrine of providence. I do not know how the question arose, but the audience was large and respectable, and that, to my mind, was the most annoying feature of the affair. Damis denied that the gods exist or have any hand whatever in the ordering and administration of the world. But the worthy Timokles strove to defend our side, and just then a crowd of people streamed in, so that the meeting came to no decision, but dissolved, agreeing to consider the rest of the question later. And now they are all on tiptoe with eagerness to hear which of the orators will prevail and be adjudged to set forth the truer cause. Do you see the danger and the strait we are in, since our cause stands or falls with a single man? One of two things will happen: either we shall be deemed mere names, and so of course disregarded, or else, if Timokles prove the better speaker, we shall be honored as heretofore.

Hera: Really this is very dreadful, and you were not so far wrong, Zeus, in addressing us in tragic vein.

Zeus: And yet you thought it was some Danae or Antiope that I was thinking about in such distress. Well, Hermes and Hera and Athene, what would be best? Take your turns in helping me to discover.

Hermes: I for my part say that an assembly ought to be called for open discussion.

Hera: I think precisely as he does.

Athene: But it strikes me just the other way, father. I do not think you ought to involve all heaven in your embarrassment, or show your own alarm at the affair; but make your arrangements privately so that Timokles may triumph and Damis be laughed out of court.

Hermes: But, Zeus, this course will not be unperceived, for the philosophers will hold their tournament in public, and you will be accused of Caesarism if you do not let all have a voice in matters so weighty and common to all.

Zeus: Very well, then. Summon them at once and let all appear. For you are right.

Hermes: Halloo, gods! Come to the assembly! Do not loiter Gather, all of you! Come! We are going to discuss great things!

Zeus: Hermes, is that bare, unadorned, prosaic style of announcement the proper thing, particularly when the greatest matters are in question?

Hermes: Why, what do you think more proper, Zeus?

Zeus: What do I think more proper? I say you ought to make your summons impressive by means of some sort of rhythm, and a sonorous, poetic form, to bring them the more readily.

Hermes: Yes; but such things belong to versewriters and declaimers, Zeus, and I am the worst poet imaginable. I should certainly ruin my summons by having too many feet in it or too few, and they would laugh at the illiteracy of my composition. I see that even Apollo's verses in his oracles are sometimes jeered at, though his prophecies are generally very obscure, so that those who receive them have not much leisure to criticize the versification.

Zeus: Well, then, string a lot of Homer's verses together in your summons, and convene us as he used. Of course you remember them.

Hermes: I can't say that I have them very pat. However, I will try: Gods and goddesses all, let none fail to answer my summons. Let not a single nymph or river-god, save only Ocean, Tarry; but haste ye all to the council that Jove hath appointed. All are bidden who feast at the hecatomb's glorious banquet, All, e'en of low degree, or lowest; yea, even the nameless, Seeing they too have a seat by the altars smoking with victims.

Zeus: Well done, Hermes. You could not have summoned them better, and the proof is that they are gathering already. So, receive them and seat them according to the value of each in material or workmanship; that is to say, the golden in the seats of honor, next to these the silver ones, then those of ivory, then those of bronze or stone; and in this class preference is to be given to the works of Pheidias and Alkamenes and Myron and Euphranor and artists of their rank. But thrust these vulgar ones, the work of bunglers, together on one side, and let them confine themselves to silently making a quorum.

Hermes: Very well. They shall take their seats in proper order. But I ought to know this: if one of them is of gold or of great weight but not well executed-in fact actually amateur's work and out of drawing—is he to take his seat in front of the bronzes of Myron and Polykleitos, and the marbles of Pheidias and Alkamenes, or is preference to be given to workmanship?

Zeus: It ought to be; but, nevertheless, the gold must take precedence.

Hermes: I see. Your orders are that they shall take their seats in order of wealth rather than in order of merit, in proportion to their taxable property. Come to the front seats, then, you golden ones!

Hermes: It looks as though the barbarians would have the front seats to themselves. The Greeks, at any rate, are, as you see, graceful and goodly of aspect and shaped with skill, but they are all alike, of wood or stone, except the very most valuable of them, and they are ivory with something of golden decoration. But they are merely colored and plated with it, and within they, too, are wooden, and give shelter to whole droves of mice who inhabit them. But Bendis here, and Anoubis and Attis beside him, and Mithres and Men are of solid gold, heavy, and really valuable.

Poseidon: Now, Hermes, is this just, to let this dog-headed Egyptian take precedence of me, Poseidon?

Hermes: No, Earthshaker; but, you see, Lysippos made you of bronze and poor because the Corinthians had no gold at the time, and Anoubis is whole mines richer than you. So you must e'en put up with being shoved aside, and not lose your temper if a god with such a great golden muzzle as his has been preferred to you.

Aphrodite: Take me, too, then, Hermes, and place me somewhere in the front rows, for I am golden.

Hermes: Not as far as I can see, Aphrodite. Unless I am exceedingly blear-eyed, you were quarried out of the white stone of Pentele, and then, at the good pleasure of Praxiteles, you became Aphrodite and were handed over to the Knidians.

Aphrodite: But I will furnish you a trustworthy referee in Homer, who, up and down in his poetry, declares me "golden Aphrodite."

Hermes: Oh, Homer says that Apollo, too, is full of gold and rich, but now you will see him sitting somewhere in the worst seats, for the robbers took his crown and stripped the pegs from his lyre. So you may congratulate yourself that you are not placed down among the servants.

Kolossos: I imagine that no one will venture to vie with me, for I am Helios, and as you see for size. For if the Rhodians had not seen fit to make me abnormally large they could have made sixteen golden gods for the same money. So I ought to be considered proportionately rich. And I exhibit art, too, and accurate workmanship, in spite of my great stature.

Hermes: What is to be done, Zeus? This case, too, is certainly a hard one to decide, for if I regard his material, he is bronze; but if I compute how much money it cost to forge him, he ranks above the highest class.

Zeus: Why need he be here, anyhow, to comment on the smallness of other people and give trouble about his seat? However, O mightiest of the Rhodians, even you take rank never so much above the golden gods, how could you take your seat before them unless you ask them all to get up? If you were to sit down you would fill the whole Pnyx. So you would do better to stand during the meeting and bend over the assembly.

Hermes: Here is another nice point to decide between Dionysos here and Herakles. Both are bronze; their workmanship is the same, for both are by Lysippos; and, most vital point of all, they are equals by birth, being alike sons of Zeus. Which of them is to have precedence? They are wrangling about it, as you see.

Zeus: We are wasting time, Hermes. We should have got to business long ago. Let them sit down now anyhow, each where he likes. By-and-by we will hold an assembly to debate these questions, and then I shall know how their ranks ought to be assigned.

Hermes: Good heavens, what a din they make, crying out, in plain every-day language, "Rations!" and "Where is the nectar?" and "The ambrosia is giving out!" and "Where are the hecatombs?" and "The sacrifices are common property!"

Zeus: Call them to order, Hermes. Make them stop this nonsense and hear why they were convened.

Hermes: But, Zeus, they do not all understand Greek, and I am no polyglot to deliver an announcement to Scythians and Persians and Thracians and Celts all at once. I think I should do best to enjoin silence by dumb show.

Zeus: Very well.

Hermes: There! Behold them reduced to the silence of the sophists. Now is your time to address them. See, they are looking towards you already, awaiting your speech.

Zeus: Hermes, you are my son, and I don't mind telling you just how I feel. You know what aplomb and magniloquence I have always shown in our assemblies?

Hermes: Indeed I do. I was always frightened when I heard you speak, particularly when you would threaten to let down that golden rope and drag from their foundations the earth and the sea and the gods with them.

Zeus: But this time, my child, whether it is the greatness of the impending dangers or of the audience-for the meeting is well attended, as you see my presence of mind has utterly deserted me, and I am trembling with nervousness and my tongue seems tied. And, most absurd of all, I have forgotten the opening of my speech, which I had prepared with a view to making as agreeable a first impression as possible.

Hermes: You have spoiled everything. Your silence is making them suspicious already, and the more you delay the more overwhelmingly bad news do they expect.

Zeus: Do you think, then, that I might begin to recite to them that introduction of Homer's?

Hermes: What one?

Zeus: "Hearken now, ye gods, and every goddess, hearken."

Hermes: Stuff! You have recited those opening lines often enough in your cups already. But, if you like, give up this tiresome business of poetry, and piece together any you choose of Demosthenes's orations against Philip, altering them a little. That is the way most speaking is done now, anyhow.

Zeus: That is a good idea-a sort of abridged rhetoric or oratory made easy for the embarrassed.

Hermes: Well, are you never going to begin?

Zeus: I imagine, men of Olympus, that you would gladly give considerable sums to obtain an idea of what this matter may be with reference to which you are now summoned. This being the case, you will do well to lend me your ears with all eagerness. Now the present crisis, deities, wellnigh declares, with audible voice, that we must give all our energies to considering the matters before us, but, as a matter of fact, we seem to me to treat them with negligence. But I should like-my Demosthenes fails me—to explain to you why I was so much disturbed as to call an assembly. Yesterday, as you are aware, Mnesitheos, the ship-master, offered a sacrifice of thanksgiving for his ship that was almost lost off Kaphereus, and we feasted in the Peiraieusas many of us, that is, as Mnesitheos had invited to the banquet. After the libations you dispersed in different directions, pursuing your own devices, while I, seeing that it was not yet late, went up to the city to stroll about at dusk in the Kerameikos, pondering on the meanness of Mnesitheos. For he offered up, by way of feast to sixteen gods, one cock, aged and asthmatic at that, and four grains of frankincense, pretty well decayed, so that it went out immediately on the embers, and not enough fragrance came out of the smoke to tickle the tip of your nose. And yet when his ship was actually going on the rocks and within. the reef he promised whole hecatombs.

Zeus: Well, revolving this in my mind, I turned up near the Painted Porch, and there I saw a great crowd of men gathered, some inside the porch itself, but most of them in the open air, and some were shouting, stretched out on the benches. I guessed what was the case: that they were philosophers of the eristic order, and I determined to stand by and listen to what they might say. I happened to have a cloud wrapped round me—a thick one-so I took on an exterior of their sort, drew forth my beard, and presented no bad imitation of a philosopher. And so I elbowed my way through the crowd and got inside without being recognized, and I found a violent controversy going on between that fox Damis the Epicurean and Timokles the Stoic, the best of men. Timokles was in a perspiration, and had lost his voice already with screaming, and Damis was exasperating him still further by sardonic mockery. Now, if you will believe it, their whole discussion was about us. Damis (confound him) declared that we have no forethought for men or guardianship of their affairs, asserting that we do not exist at all, for this was plainly the purport of his speech. And some there were who applauded him.

Zeus: But the other, Timokles, took our side and fought for us, and excited himself, and did his best for us, praising our watchful care, and rehearsing how all things are arranged and reduced to regularity and order by us. He, too, had some applause, but he had already been speaking too long and his utterance was labored, so that the crowd looked away from him to Damis. Seeing what was at stake, I bade the night descend and break up the meeting, and so they went their ways, agreeing to examine the question completely the next day. I followed along with the crowd, and heard them praising Damis's arguments among themselves as they walked home, and already decidedly siding with him. But there were some, too, who did not think it right to decide beforehand between the rivals, but to wait and see what Timokles would say on the morrow.

Zeus: These, deities, are my reasons for summoning you; no slight ones, if you consider that all our honor, revenue, and prestige come from men. And if they should be persuaded either that we do not exist at all or that we have no forethought for them, we shall have no more sacrifices and gifts and honor from earth, and we shall sit idly in heaven oppressed by hunger when we are deprived of those feasts and national holidays and games and sacrifices and vigils and processions. In such a crisis we all ought certainly to devise some means of safety by which Timokles may be victorious and be held to make the truer argument, and Damis may be jeered by the audience. For I myself have small confidence that Timokles will win by his own exertions unless he also receives assistance from us. Accordingly, Hermes, announce in due form that remarks are in order.

Hermes: Hear ye, silence! Make no disturbance! Who wishes to speak, of those full-grown divinities whose right it is? What is this? Does no one rise? They are all silent, overwhelmed by the importance of the news.

Momos: Now I would that you all might turn to earth and to water! But for my part, Zeus, if I am at liberty to speak with perfect freedom, I have a good many things to say.

Zeus: Speak, Momos, without restraint. I am sure your frankness will be for our good.

Momos: Hear, then, deities, what at any rate I think in my heart of hearts, as they say. You must know that I have been pretty confidently expecting that our affairs would come to as bad a pass as this, and that numbers of sophists like these would spring up against us, finding grounds for their temerity in our own conduct. By heaven, we have no right to be angry with Epicurus or with his disciples and successors if they have conceived these notions about us. What, then, could you ask them to think when they see such anarchy in human life, the best of them neglected, perishing utterly in poverty and disease and slavery, while worthless blackguards are preferred to them in honor, and surpass them in riches, and are placed in authority over their betters; when they see that sacrilege is not punished but escapes unnoticed, while sometimes innocent men are impaled on stakes and beaten to death? It is only natural, then, that when they see such things they decide as they do, that we have no existence at all,

Momos: particularly when they hear the oracles saying that if a certain man crosses the Halys he will overthrow a great kingdom, without specifying whether it will be his own kingdom or his enemy's. And then again the oracle says: Salamis, dear to the gods, thou shalt slay children of women. But I imagine both the Persians and the Greeks were children of women. And then when they hear from the minstrels how we fall in love, and receive wounds, and get put in chains and made servants, and are divided against ourselves, and have a myriad of troubles, all the time claiming to be blessed and indestructible, have they not a perfect right to jeer at us and make us of no account? But we get angry if certain persons who are human beings, and not altogether devoid of wits, sift these matters and deny our providence, whereas we ought to felicitate ourselves if any still continue to sacrifice to sinners like us.

Momos: And now, Zeus, give me an honest answer to a question-for we are alone, and there is no mortal present in the assembly, except Herakles and Dionysos and Ganymedes and Asklepios, who have somehow got naturalized among us—have you ever paid enough attention to the people on earth to distinguish the bad ones from the good? You cannot say you have. Certainly, unless Theseus on his way from Troizen to Athens had incidentally exterminated those malefactors, Skeiron and the Pine-Bender and Kerkyon and the others might have continued to live riotously by the slaughter of wayfarers, as far as you and your providence are concerned. And if Eurystheus, living in the earliest times and full of forethought, had not been moved by philanthropy to inquire into every one's affairs, and had not sent forth his servant here, an active man and keen for labors, you, Zeus, would have given small thought to the Hydra and the Stymphalian birds and the Thrakian horses and the drunken insolence of the Kentaurs.

Momos: On the contrary, if I must speak candidly, we sit and watch for just one thing, whether haply some one is sacrificing and sending up the savor of burnt-offerings beside the altars. Everything else drifts down stream as chance carries it. Accordingly, our present experience is natural, and what we have yet in store for us, too, when little by little mortals lift their heads and find that it does them no good to offer us sacrifices and pageants. Then you will soon see your Epicurus and your Metrodoros and your Damis jeering, and the speakers on our side overcome and stopped by them. Not that Momos has much to lose if he falls into disrepute, for I was never one of the reputable ones, even while you were still prosperous and had a monopoly of the sacrifices.

Zeus: Do not mind this fellow's babble, deities, for he was always an ill-conditioned fault-finder. And, besides, in the words of the great Demosthenes, it is easy to criticise and blame and find fault-any one who likes can do that; but it is the gift of a truly sagacious counsellor to point out how the state of things may be improved, and this I am sure the rest of you will do, even if Momos holds his tongue.

Poseidon: I, as you know, am generally under water, and dwell by myself in the deep sea, doing my best to rescue mariners and forward ships and temper the winds. Nevertheless, I have a stake in things up here, too, and it is my opinion that this Damis ought to be disposed of before he comes to the contest, either by lightning or some other means, lest his speech prevail-for you say, Zeus, that he is a plausible sort of fellow. In that way we shall show them at the same time that we take vengeance on people who say such things against us.

Zeus: Are you joking, Poseidon, or have you clean forgotten that we have nothing to do with such matters, but that the Fates weave his death for each man—for one by lightning, for another by the sword, for a third by fever or consumption? Do you suppose that if this were under my control I would have let those temple-robbers go forth unstricken from Pisa the other day, when they had cut off two locks of my hair weighing six pounds each? Or would you yourself have ignored the fisherman from Oreos who carried off your trident at Geraistos? Above all, we should seem to have lost self-control in our distress and to be afraid of Damis's arguments, and therefore to be getting rid of the man rather than to endure to confront him with Timokles. Should we not in this way seem to be winning our case merely by default?

Poseidon: Now I thought I had hit on a short cut to victory.

Zeus: Nonsense, Poseidon. Your argument is worthy of one of your own tunny-fish, positively dense. Snatch away the opponent, forsooth, so that he may die unconquered and leave his arguments behind without attack or exposure!

Poseidon: Very well, think of something better yourselves, if you dismiss my idea with a joke about the tunnies.

Apollo: If it were permitted by law to a beardless youth like me to address the meeting, I could, perhaps, make a useful contribution to the discussion.

Momos: In the first place, Apollo, the discussion has to do with such great questions that the right of speech does not go by years, but is common to all. For it would be a nice thing if, when we are in the extremest danger, we should quibble about a legal qualification. But, anyhow, you are already decidedly eligible as a speaker in the eye of the law, for you emerged long ago from among the youths; you have been inscribed on the rolls of the twelve, and you were almost a member of the council in Kronos's day. So don't try your youthful airs on us, but speak up boldly and tell us your views. And do not let the fact that you are a beardless orator embarrass you, particularly when you have your son Asklepios here with a beard to his waist. Moreover, it would be peculiarly fitting for you to show your wisdom now of all occasions, unless you have sat philosophizing with the Muses on Helikon to no purpose.

Apollo: It is not your business, however, Momos, to give these permissions, but Zeus's, and if he bids me I might perhaps say something worthy of the Muses and my exercises on Helikon.

Zeus: Speak, my child; I give you leave.

Apollo: This Timokles is a worthy man and pious, and perfectly conversant with the methods of the Stoics, so that he teaches many young men and levies no small fee therefor. For he is very convincing when he discourses with his pupils in private; but he lacks nerve for public speaking, and his utterance is untrained-half Greek and half barbarian. On this account he always raises a laugh in company, for he does not speak connectedly, but stammers and becomes confused, most of all when, in spite of this weakness, he wishes to exhibit elegance of style. His mind is surpassingly sharp and quick-so they say who are best informed in the doctrines of the Stoicsbut by his feebleness in speaking and expounding he spoils his subject-matter and confuses it, and fails to make his points clear, but rather lays down enigmatical propositions; and when it is his turn to answer expresses himself more darkly still. So he is misunderstood and laughed at. Now I think one should speak plainly, and take care above everything that his hearers understand him.

Momos: What you say in praise of plain-speaking, Apollo, is very just, though you do not practice it very much yourself in your oracles. They are ambiguous and enigmatical, and in a non-commital way throw most things on disputed ground, so that the hearers need another Apollo to tell them what you mean. But what is your advice in this case? How is Timokles's weakness in argument to be cured?

Apollo: By furnishing him, if we can manage it, with counsel: one of those clever men who would deliver worthily whatever Timokles devised and suggested to him.

Momos: This is certainly a beardless utterance, and still in want of a school-master! To set up an advocate in an assemblage of philosophers to expound Timokles's views to the company! Damis to be present in person, and speak in his own character, but Timokles to use a mime and pour whatever he thinks into his ear, and the actor to deliver it, perhaps himself not understanding what he hears! Of course it would be ridiculous to the crowd. But let us consider this rather different idea.

Momos: You say, my admirable friend, that you are a seer, and you ask a good price for your services, and once even received bricks of gold. Why did you not give us an exhibition of your skill in the nick of time by telling us which of the Sophists is going to prevail in argument? For, of course, you know what the issue will be, since you are a seer.

Apollo: How can I, Momos, when I have no tripod with me, and no incense and no prophetic fountain like Kastalia?

Momos: Look, now, when you have got into a tight place you run away from conviction.

Zeus: Never mind, my child. Speak out, and do not give this backbiter pretexts for slander, and for saying, in his sneering way, that your skill is dependent on your tripod and your water and your incense, and that unless you have these your art will be lost.

Apollo: These things, father, are better done in Delphi or in Kolophon, where I have all the accessories to which I am accustomed. Still, bare as I am of these and unequipped, I will try to prophesy which of them will have the mastery. But you will bear with me if my verses should nor be very correct.

Momos: Speak, but only make your remarks clear, Apollo, so that they will not need an advocate themselves or interpretation. This is not a case of sheep's flesh and tortoise being boiled together in Lydia. You know what our inquiry is about.

Zeus: What in the world are you going to tell us, my child? The symptoms that precede the utterance are already alarming. His color is fading, his eyes are rolling, his hair is standing on end, and his gestures are those of a Korybant. His whole bearing is mystic, frantic, possessed.

Apollo: Hear now the word divine, declared by the prophet Apollo Dealing with shuddering strife that men wage, shrill with their screaming, Armed cap-a-pie with words, with arguments well-compacted. Hither and yon with the clucking that shifts to the side of the victor Strike they and bear to earth the towering stern of the plow-tail. Yet, when the locust shall fall 'neath the crooked claw of the vulture, Then the rain - bringing crows shall utter their ultimate portent. Victory lies with the mules, but the ass shall butt his fleet children.

Zeus: Why do you burst out laughing at this, Momus? Surely there is nothing humorous in our present situation. Stop, wretch, or you will choke with laughing.

Momos: How can I help laughing at such a clear, straightforward oracle?

Zeus: Then, perhaps, you will kindly interpret to us what he says.

Momos: It is perfectly plain, so that we shall not need Themistokles. The oracle says clearly that the seer is a juggler and that we are packasses, by Zeus! and mules to believe in him, with not the wit of a locust among us.

Herakles: I do not hesitate, father, to express my views, even though I am only a resident foreigner. My idea is that when they meet and are already engaged in discussion, then, if Timokles prove the better man, we will allow the meeting to proceed to our advantage. But if it turn out otherwise, then by your leave I will shake the Porch itself from its foundations and hurl it at Damis, so that the accursed wretch may not offer insult to us.

Zeus: Heavens, Herakles, what a boorish speech, and how horribly Boeotian! To destroy so many for the sake of one wretch, and, what is more, the Porch with Marathon, Miltiades, Kynaegeiros and all? If all these should perish together, how would the orators continue to practise, deprived of the chief theme of their speeches? Moreover, in your lifetime it was perhaps possible to do even a thing of that kind; but since you have become a god, you have learned, I presume, that the Fates alone control these matters, and we have no voice in them.

Herakles: Then, when I was slaying the lion or the hydra, the Fates were doing these things by my agency?

Zeus: Certainly.

Herakles: And at this moment if any one uses insolence towards me, by rifling one of my temples or overturning my statue, shall I not destroy him unless it was long ago so decided by the Fates?

Zeus: By no means.

Herakles: Then, Zeus, hear me declare myself frankly, for I am a boor, as the comic poet said, and I call a spade a spade. If this is our plight, I shall bid a long farewell to the worship and savor of burnt-offerings and blood of victims in heaven, and go off to Hades. There the ghosts, at least, of the beasts I slew will be afraid of me, if I have my bow, though I be unarmed beside.

Zeus: Very well; nothing like a relative for turning state's evidence, as they say. You would have saved Damis the trouble of making these remarks by suggesting them yourself.

Zeus: But who is this hasty - comer-bronze, wellformed, with a good outline and an obsolete coiffure? It must be your brother, Hermes, the one that stands in the market-place near the Porch. At all events, his hollows are full of pitch from having impressions of him taken daily by the statuaries. Why, my child, do you come to us at racing speed? Have you, perhaps, some fresh news from earth?

Hermagoras: Great news, Zeus, and calling for the greatest attention.

Zeus: Speak, then, if some new trouble has arisen unknown to us.

Hermagoras: It chanced that even now the brass-workers Were smearing me with pitch on breast and back. A breastplate modelled by the mimic's art Hung round me ludicrous. It was beat out Merely to take th' impression of my bronze. But I beheld a crowd approaching. Two Pale, screaming, quibbling, verbal prize-fighters, One Damis and the other-

Zeus: Drop the iambics, there's a good fellow. I know whom you mean. But tell me this, whether they have already joined battle.

Hermagoras: Not yet. They were still skirmishing and attacking each other from afar with the javelins of abuse.

Zeus: What is there left for us to do now, deities, but bend down and listen to them? So let the Hours draw the bolt immediately and chase away the clouds and throw open the gates of heaven.

Zeus: Heavens, what a crowd has gathered to hear them! But I am not very well satisfied with Timokles himself; he is trembling with confusion. He will ruin everything this day. Evidently he will not be able to stand against Damis. However, let us do what in us lies and pray for him. "Silence on our side, that Damis, at least, may not hear us."

Timokles: What is this you say, Damis, you looter of temples? That the gods do not exist or exercise providence for men?

Damis: That is what I say; but do you first answer me, and state what reason you have for believing in their existence.

Timokles: I will not, you wretch. You answer me.

Damis: I will not. Answer yourself.

Zeus: So far our man has been far more successfully and loudly abusive. That's right, Timokles, pour on the abuse. Your strength lies there, since in other lines he stops your mouth and makes you dumb as a fish.

Timokles: By Heaven, I will not answer you first if I know it.

Damis: Then put your question, for you beat me that time by swearing. But spare abusive language, if you please.

Timokles: Very well. Tell me, then, is it your opinion, accursed wretch, that the gods exert no providence?

Damis: They do not.

Timokles: What, is the universe, then, not the result of design?

Damis: It is not.

Timokles: And did no god arrange the whole superintendence of things either?

Damis: No.

Timokles: But all things are borne along haphazard by an unreasoning current?

Damis: Yes.

Timokles: Now can you men endure to hear this and not stone the guilty wretch?

Damis: Why do you stir up the audience against me, Timokles? And who are you to show anger in the gods' behalf when they are not angry themselves? At least they have not handled me roughly, though they have heard me for a long time, supposing they do hear.

Timokles: They hear, Damis, they hear, and they will take vengeance on you some day.

Damis: And when would they have leisure for my case if, as you say, they are full of cares, managing the universe, infinite as it is? That is the reason they have not yet even punished you for your continual perjuries and your other crimes, which I will not specify lest I should be driven to use abusive language myself, contrary to our agreement. And yet I do not see how they could produce better proof of their own providence than by bringing your bad life to a bad end. But clearly they have gone abroad, across the ocean, perchance to visit the "blameless Ethiopians." At least it is their habit to go constantly to dine with them, and sometimes on their own invitation.

Timokles: What shall I say in reply to such shameless effrontery?

Damis: What I have been yearning to hear from you this long time: how you came to believe in the providence of the gods.

Timokles: I was convinced of it first by the order of natural events: the sun who always travels the same road and the moon similarly, and the recurring seasons, and the growth of plants, and the birth of animals, and these animals themselves so ingeniously contrived that they feed themselves and reason, and move about and walk, and build houses and make shoes, and all the rest of it. Do not these seem to you the works of providence?

Damis: Why, Timokles, you have assumed the very question in dispute, for it remains to be seen. whether each of these is accomplished by providence. That natural events are such as you describe I, too, admit, but it does not follow of necessity that they owe their existence to any intelligent foresight. For it is possible that they had some other origin, and yet have now a consistent and methodical existence. But this forced action of theirs you call 'order,' and then, forsooth, you fly into a rage if some one rejects your argument when, after recounting and praising the nature of objects, you go on to believe that this is a proof that each of them is also put in its place by providence. Wherefore, in the words of the comic poet, This is too feeble, tell me something else.

Timokles: For my part, I do not think that additional proof is necessary; but still I will go on. Answer me, do you consider Homer the best of poets?

Damis: Certainly.

Timokles: Well, he convinced me by setting forth the providence of the gods.

Damis: But, my astonishing friend, every one will grant you that Homer is a great poet, but not that he or any poet whatsoever is a reliable witness in these matters. For their concern, I imagine, is not for truth, but to charm their hearers; and on this account they lull us with metres and amuse us with stories, and devise the whole thing in the interests of pleasure. Still, I should be pleased to hear what passages of Homer chiefly convinced you.

: Probably those in which he speaks of Zeus, and tells how his daughter and his brother and his wife plotted to put him in irons. And if Thetis had not perceived what was going on and called Briareos, our glorious Zeus would have been seized and tied up. It was in return for this and to repay his obligation to Thetis that he deceived Agamemnon by sending him a false dream for the destruction of many Greeks. Notice that he was unable to launch a thunderbolt and burn up Agamemnon himself, but must assume the role of cheat. Or was conviction forced upon you chiefly when you heard how Diomedes wounded Aphrodite and then Ares himself at the suggestion of Athene, and how the gods themselves fell to after a little and fought duels indiscriminately, gods and goddesses together, and how Athene overcame Ares because, I imagine, he was weak from the wound he had already got from Diomedes, and Hermes, the ready-helper, stoutly stood against Leto? Or did the account of Artemis strike you as convincing, telling how her discontented nature was angered because Oineus did not ask her to his banquet, and how, accordingly, she let loose upon his land a certain boar of surpassing size and irresistible strength? Was it, then, by such narratives as these that Homer convinced you?

Zeus: Alas, alack! What an outcry the crowd made, deities, applauding Damis! And our man seems to have lost his head. He is frightened, certainly, and trembling, and on the point of throwing away his shield. He is already looking about for some loop-hole through which he can slip and make his escape.

Timokles: Perhaps you do not think that Euripides says anything sound, either, when he introduces the gods themselves upon the stage and shows them engaged in saving the good among the heroes, but destroying the wicked and impiety like yours?

Damis: But, most illustrious of philosophers, if the dramatists have convinced you by such means as that, one of two things follows. Either you believe the actors to be for the moment gods, or else the divine masks themselves, and the shoes, and the tunics flowing to the feet, and the cloaks, and the loose sleeves, and the false paunches, and the padding, and all the rest of the apparatus which makes the tragedy impressive, which is most ridiculous, I think. But whenever Euripides speaks his own mind, unforced by the exigencies of the dramas, hear how bold he is: You see this boundless aether spread on high, Enfolding earth in damp, encircling arms? Deem then that this is Zeus, believe this god. and again, Zeus, Whoe'er Zeus is, for I know not, unless By hearsay, and other similar passages.

Timokles: Then all mankind and the nations have been deceived in believing in the gods and celebrating their feasts?

Damis: It is a good thing, Timokles, that you reminded me of the religious opinions among the nations, the very things which best show that there is no certainty about gods. For there is much confusion, and different races have different faiths. The Scythians worship a sword; the Thracians, Zamolxis, a fugitive who came to them from Samos; the Phrygians, Mena; the Ethiopians, Day; the Assyrians, a dove; the Persians, fire; the Egyptians, water. Moreover, while this waterworship is common to all the Egyptians, the peculiar god of the people of Memphis is the bull, and that of the Pelusians is the onion; and others worship the ibis or the crocodile, and others a dog-headed creature or a cat or an ape. And, again, the rural communities differ from one another, so that some men hold the right shoulder to be a god, but those that dwell opposite to them the left. And some worship one side of the head, and others an earthen wine-cup or a bowl. Are not these things absurd, friend Timokles?

Momos: Did I not tell you, deities, that all these things would come to light and be rigorously investigated?

Zeus: You did, Momos, and your censure was just; and if we escape this present danger, I for one will try to straighten out these matters.

Timokles: But tell me, god-forsaken wretch, whose work would you call oracles and prophecies of future events, if not of the gods and their providence?

Damis: Hold your peace, my good fellow, on the subject of the oracles, for I shall ask you which of them in particular you would like to recall. Perhaps that one Apollo delivered to the Lydian, which was neatly double-edged and looked both ways, like some of the Hermae, which are exactly alike on both sides to whichever part of them you look. For tell me, will Croesus by crossing the Halys be more likely to overthrow his own kingdom or that of Cyros? And yet that Sardian pest paid no small sum for this reversible utterance.

Momos: The man is enumerating the very things I was most afraid of. Where now is our handsome harper? Go down and defend yourself against these charges of his.

Zeus: You strike us when we are down, Momos, finding fault with us now, when the season is past.

Timokles: Beware what you are doing, wretched Damis. You are all but overturning the very seats and altars of the gods with your arguments.

Damis: No, not all their altars, Timokles; for what harm do they do if they are full of incense and fragrance? But those of Artemis in Tauris I should be delighted to see turned upsidedown, whereon the maiden goddess feasts joyously on the things we wot of.

Zeus: Whence has this overwhelming evil come upon us? There is not a divinity that the man stands in awe of. He speaks his mind as freely as a wench in a procession, and he Grasps them all in order, deserving and undeserving.

Momos: In truth, Zeus, you would find very few who do not deserve it among us. And surely the man will go on to lay hold of even the very greatest.

Timokles: Perhaps you do not hear Zeus thundering, you fighter against the gods?

Damis: Of course I hear the thunder; but as to whether it is Zeus who thunders, your knowledge would be more reliable if you had come from somewhere up there among the gods. For travellers from Crete tell us a different story: that a certain tomb is shown in that country, and beside it stands a pillar telling that Zeus will thunder no more, being long since dead.

Momos: I knew long ago that the man was going to say that. But, Zeus, why have you turned pale? Why do you tremble so that your teeth chatter? You must take heart and despise such manikins.

Zeus: What do you say, Momos? Despise them? Do you not see how large the audience is, and how they are persuaded against us already, and how Damis is leading them away with their ears stopped?

Momos: But, Zeus, if you liked you could let down a rope and Drag not them alone, but earth, too, and the ocean.

Timokles: Tell me, wretch, have at sea? you ever been Damis. Yes, often.

Timokles: You were carried along then, were you not, either by the wind striking the main-sail and filling the staysail, or by the rowers, while some one person stood at the helm and brought the vessel through in safety?

Damis: Certainly.

Timokles: Then the ship could not sail unless it was steered; but you imagine that this universe moves along without pilot or guide?

Zeus: Well done, Timokles! that is a powerful comparison.

Damis: But, Timokles, darling of the gods, you would have seen that our pilot was always devising something to our advantage and making his arrangements at the proper time, and giving his commands to the sailors in good season, and that there was nothing useless or foolish about the ship. On the contrary, everything was altogether useful and necessary to their management of her. But this pilot of yours, whom you suppose to stand at the helm of this great ship, and his crew, do not order a single thing sensibly or as it ought to be. The forestay is hauled aft if it so happens, and the sheets forward. Sometimes the anchors are of gold, while the stern is ornamented with lead. Under water the ship's lines are good, but above the water-line she is shapeless.

Damis: And among the sailors themselves you will find that one who is lazy, unskilled, and afraid of his duties draws double or treble pay, while another, who is an expert swimmer and quick to spring to the yards, and who knows the best thing to do in every case, this man is set simply to bale out bilge-water. You will find the same sort of thing among the passengers, too. A worthless rascal occupies the place of honor next the captain, and receives attention. Another, an indecent fellow, or a parricide, or a temple-robber, is honored above others, and has taken possession of the upper deck, while many men of culture are penned together in a corner of the vessel and trodden underfoot by those who are really their inferiors. At any rate, you remarked how Sokrates made the voyage, and Aristeides and Phokion, without either daily bread enough or room to stretch their legs on the bare deck along the hold, and on the other hand how well Kallias and Meidias and Sardanapalos fared in their overweening luxury, spitting on those beneath.

Damis: This is the sort of thing that goes on in your ship, sage Timokles, wherefore the shipwrecks are countless. But if any pilot stood at the helm, and kept a lookout and ordered everything, he would know in the first place who were good and who were worthless of the ship's company, and he would apportion to each what befitted his merits, giving the better quarters near himself on deck to the better men, and the lower parts to the worse, and he would cause some of the better sort to sit at table together and come to terms of confidence. Among the sailors a zealous man would be distinguished by being put on the lookout or made captain of a watch, or set over all the others. But a lazy shirk would get the rope's end about his head five times a day. So, my friend, your comparison seems to have capsized because it fell into the hands of a bad pilot.

Momos: Things are running with the tide for Damis now, and he is sailing to victory with a fair wind.

Zeus: Your metaphor is just, Momos, and Timokles invents no forcible argument. He only ladles out easily refuted commonplaces one after another that are in every one's mouth.

Timokles: Well, since you do not think the analogy of the ship very forcible, listen while I cast the last blessed anchor I have, which you will not drag by any device.

Zeus: What in the world is he going to say?

Timokles: For see now whether my syllogism is fallacious, and whether you can possibly overturn it. If altars exist, gods exist also. But altars certainly exist, therefore gods exist also. What have you to say to that?

Damis: Let me have my laugh out first and then I will answer you.

Timokles: But it looks as if you would never be done laughing. However, tell me why my speech struck you as ridiculous.

Damis: Because you do not perceive that you have slung your anchor on a slender thread, though it is the last blessed one you have. For when you have made fast the proposition "gods. exist" to the proposition "altars exist" you imagine that you have brought it to a safe anchorage. So since you have nothing more blessed to urge let us adjourn at once.

Timokles: Do you then admit yourself worsted by crying" Enough?"

Damis: Yes, Timokles, for you, like a hardpressed fugitive, have taken sanctuary on your altars, and so, by the blessed anchor, I long to swear a truce with you on these very altars, so that we may no longer wrangle about them.

Timokles: You are chaffing me, you grave-robber, you blackguard, you disgusting beast, you knavish slave, you refuse! Don't I know who your father was and your mother, too, and how you strangled your brother, and are an evil-liver and corrupter of lads, you filthy, shameless wretch? Don't run away now, for you are going to get blows from me, too, before you get off. I am going to cut your throat directly with this potsherd, miscreant that you are!

Zeus: Damis is running off laughing, deities, and the other is chasing him with abuse, put out past bearing by Damis's wealth of impertinence, and apparently he is going to clip him in the head with the tile. But what shall we do now?

Hermes: It seems to me the comic poet was right when he said: Do not profess defeat and you will suffer none. For what great harm is it if a handful of men go off persuaded to these views, seeing that there are many who know to the contrary, the majority of the Greeks, a numerous race, and all the barbarians?

Zeus: However, Hermes, that was a capital remark that Dareios made about Zopyrus. In the same way I, too, would rather have one Damis for my ally than rule ten thousand Babylons.